Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier

by Frank H. Severance

Robert Marsh claimed American citizenship, but the eventful year of 1837 found him on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. His brother was a baker at Chippewa, and Robert drove a cart, laden with the bakery products, back and forth between the neighboring villages. From St. Catharines to Fort Erie he dispensed bread and crackers and the other perhaps not wholly harmless ammunition that was moulded in that Chippewa bakery; and he naturally absorbed the ideas and the sentiments of the men he met. The Niagara district was at fever heat. Mackenzie had sown his Patriot literature broadcast, and what with real and imaginary wrongs the majority of the community sentiment seemed ripe for rebellion.

It is easy enough now, as one reads the story of that uprising, to see that the rebels never had a ghost of a chance. The grip of the Government never was in real danger of being thrown off in the upper province; but a very little rebellion looks great in the eyes of the rebel who hazards his neck thereby; and it is no wonder that Robert Marsh came to the conclusion that the colonial government of Canada was about to be overthrown, or that he decided to cast in his lot with those who should win glory in the cause of freedom. As an American citizen he had a right to do this. History was full of high precedents. Did not Byron espouse the cause of the Greeks? Did not Lafayette make his name immortal in the ranks of American rebels? One part of America had lately thrown off the hated yoke of Great Britain; why should not another part? So our cracker peddler reasoned; and reasoning thus, began the train of adventures for the narration of which I draw in brief upon his own obscure narrative. It is a story that leads us over some strange old trails, and its value lies chiefly in the fact that it illustrates, by means of a personal experience, a well-defined period in the history of the Niagara region. Robert Marsh is hardly an ideal hero, but he is a fair type of a class who contrived greatly to delude themselves, and to pay roundly for their experience. He thought as many others thought; what he adventured was also adventured by many other men of spirit; and what he endured before he got through with it was the unhappy lot of many of his fellows.

It was a time of great discontent and discouragement on both sides of the border. Throughout the Holland Purchase the difficulties over land titles had reached a climax, and the sheriff and his deputies enforced the law at the risk of their lives. This year of 1837 also brought the financial panic which is still a high-water mark of hard times in our history. Buffalo suffered keenly, and it is not strange that such of her young men as had a drop of adventurous blood in their veins were ready to turn "Patriot" for the time being; though as a matter of sober fact it must be recorded that the enthusiasm of the majority did not blind their judgment to the hopelessness of the rebellion. On the Canadian side the case was different. Unlike their American brethren, many of the residents there felt that they had not a representative government. It is not necessary now, nor is it essential to our story, to rehearse the grievances which the Canadian Patriots undertook to correct by taking up arms against the established authority. They are presented with great elaboration in many histories; they are detailed with curious ardor in the Declaration of Rights, a document ostentatiously patterned after the Declaration of Independence. William Lyon Mackenzie was a long way from being a Thomas Jefferson; yet he and his associates undertook a reform which—taking it at their valuation—was as truly in behalf of liberty as was the work of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. They made the same appeal to justice; argued from the same point of view for man's inalienable rights; they were temperate, too, in their demands, and sought liberty without bloodshed. Yet while the American patriots were enabled to persist and win their cause, though after two bitter and exhausting wars, their Canadian imitators were ignominiously obliterated in a few weeks. In the one case the cause of Liberty won her brightest star. In the other, there is complete defeat, without a monument save the derision of posterity.

It was in November of this year of rebellion 1837 that Marsh, being at Chippewa, decided to cast in his lot with the Patriots. "I began to think," he says, "that I must soon become an actor on one side or the other." He saw the Government troops patrolling every inch of the Canadian bank of the Niagara, and concentrating in the vicinity of Chippewa. "Boats of every description were brought from different parts; at the same time they were mustering all their cannon and mortars intending to drive them [the Patriots] off; one would think by their talk, that they would not only kill them all, but with their cannon mow down all the trees, and what the balls failed in hitting the trees would fall upon, and thus demolish the whole Patriot army." Our hero's observations have this peculiar value: they are on the common level. He heard the boasts and braggadocio of the common soldier; the diplomatic or guarded speech of officers and officials he did not record. He heard all about the plot to seize the Caroline, and could not believe it at first. But, he says, "when I beheld the men get in the boats and shove off and the beacon lights kindled on the shore, that they might the more safely find the way back, my eyes were on the stretch, towards where the ill-fated boat lay." When he saw the party return and heard them boast of what they had done, he thought it high time for him to leave the place. "Judge my feelings," he says, "on beholding this boat on fire, perhaps some on board, within two short miles of the Falls of Niagara, going at the rate of twelve miles an hour."[47]

The Caroline was burned on the 29th of December. On the next day our hero and a friend set out to join the Patriots. Let me quote in condensed fashion from his narrative, which is a tolerably graphic contribution to the history of this famous episode:

"We succeeded in reaching the river six miles above Chippewa about 11 o'clock in the evening, after a tedious and dangerous journey through an extensive swamp. There is a small settlement in a part of this swamp which has been called Sodom. There were many Indians prowling about. We managed to evade them but with much difficulty. There were sentinels every few rods along the line." A friendly woman at a farmhouse let them take a boat. They offered her $5 for its use, but she declined; "she said she would not take anything ... as she knew our situation and felt anxious to do all in her power to help us across the river; she also told us that her husband had taken Mackenzie across a few nights previous. 'Leave the boat in the mouth of the creek,' said she, pointing across the river towards Grand Island, ... 'there is a man there that will fetch it back, you have only to fasten it, say nothing and go your way.' We were convinced that we were not the only ones assisted by this patriotic lady."

Marsh and his companion, whose surname was Thomas, launched the boat with much difficulty, and with muffled oars they rowed across to Grand Island. "It was about 1 o'clock in the morning and we had to go eight or nine miles through the woods and no road. There had been a light fall of snow, and in places [was] ice that would bear a man, but oftener would not; once or twice in crossing streams the ice gave way and we found ourselves nearly to the middle in water." Our patriot's path, the reader will note, was hard from the outset, but he kept on, expecting to be with his friends again in a few days, and little dreaming of what lay ahead of him. "We at near daylight succeeded in reaching White Haven, a small village, where we were hailed by one of our militia sentinels: 'Who comes there?' 'Friends.' 'Advance and give the countersign.' Of course we advanced, but we could not give the countersign; a guard was immediately dispatched with us to headquarters, where we underwent a strict examination."

He was sent across to Tonawanda, where he took the cars for Schlosser. There the blood-stains on the dock where Durfee had been killed sealed his resolution; he crossed to Navy Island and presented himself at the headquarters of William Lyon Mackenzie, the peppery little Scotchman who was the prime organizer of the Provisional Government, and of General Van Rensselaer, commander-in-chief of the Patriot Army. "The General produced the list and asked me the length of time I wished to enlist. I was so confident of success that I unhesitatingly replied, 'Seven years or during the war.' The General remarked, 'I wish I had 2,000 such men, we have about 1,000 already,[48] and I think this Caroline affair will soon swell our force to 2,000, and then I shall make an attack at some point where they least expect, ... and as you are well acquainted there I want you to be by my side.'" Here was preferment indeed, for Marsh believed that Van Rensselaer was brave and able; history has a different verdict; but we must assume that our hero entered upon the campaign with high hopes and who knows what visions of glory.

Now, at the risk of tiresomeness, I venture to dwell a little longer on this occupancy of Navy Island; I promise to get over ground faster farther along in the story. It is assumed that the reader knows the principal facts of this familiar episode; but in Marsh's journal I find graphic details of the affair not elsewhere given, to my knowledge. Let me quote from his obscure record:

After my informing the General of their preparations and intention of attacking the Island, breastworks were hastily thrown up, and all necessary arrangements made to give them a warm reception. There were twenty-five cannon, mostly well mounted, which could easily be concentrated at any point required; and manned by men that knew how to handle them. Besides other preparations, tops of trees and underbrush were thrown over the bank at different places to prevent them landing. I know there were various opinions respecting the strength of the Island, but from close observation, during these days of my enlistment, it is my candid opinion that if they had attacked the Island, as was expected, they would mostly or all have found a watery grave. The tories were fearful of this, for when the attempt was made men could not be found to hazard their lives in so rash an attempt....